Emotional Wellbeing tips

Emotional wellbeing tips  

What is meant by emotional well-being? 

From the world health organisation  , mental well-being enables people to cope with life, realise their abilities, learn well, and contribute to their community. When we have good emotional wellbeing, we feel positive about ourselves and the world around us. This enables us to live our lives in a way that feels right. Wellbeing tips can help us to look after ourselves. 

Wellbeing tips

1. Get honest about your emotions 

When we suppress how we feel, or deny how we are feeling, this might make us feel like we are coping short term. However, our emotions are there to protect us and to help us understand what we need. Equally, we don’t want to be quick to act on our feelings. We need to live in alignment with them. That means accepting it, giving ourselves time to see the message, and being true to ourselves.

This could look like not always saying yes when we want to say no, just to make others around us happy. This also means not keeping it all locked inside when someone has upset us. When we ignore how we feel, we are disconnecting ourselves from our intuition, and our intuition is there to help us live our most authentic life. There are many ways we can process our emotions and it will depend on the situation. Here are some ideas:

• Journal 
• Stating our boundaries
• Healthily communicating our emotions to others
• Talking to a trusted friend 
• Identifying and acknowledging our feelings
• Listening to music
• Crying
• Rhythmic breathing (this youtube video will show you how)

2. Create flexible routines

Create a routine that works for your needs and your life. By making it a flexible one, we won’t worry too much if it needs to change, and when we feel a little lost or overwhelmed we can look back to the routine for some structure. The benefits of routines are that they reduce stress, help you focus, preserve your energy, improves sleep, help to enjoy quality time with others, and much more. Some tips for making a routine are:

• Create times for specific tasks
• Give yourself extra time for anything that makes you feel anxious or rushed
• Schedule out time for things you enjoy
• Create enjoyable morning routines
• Create calming night time routines

3. Create  healthy habits

We can start small when we are making changes and creating healthy habits. It can take some time for them to actually become habits so we need to be patient with ourselves and not change too much all at once. You could start by writing down some things you want to add or take away from your life to make it healthier, and then see how you can put these into your routine.

If we focus on how it makes us feel short term, we won’t get frustrated when the bigger goal feels further away, for example, if we wanted to make a habit of walking more, we could focus on the instant energy and feel good mood, rather the long term benefit of being stronger. Here are some ideas for creating healthy habits:

• Find a healthier breakfast that you can enjoy each morning
• Find a water bottle you enjoy sipping from to encourage water intake
• Add more vegetables to your main meal
• Make time for things you enjoy doing
• Write out daily positive affirmations and quotes
• Make plans to connect with friends
• Make lists and to do lists as it feels good ticking them off
• Make a vision board you can see each day
• Do something calming before bed

4. Personal development

We are always on our personal development journey and life is always about learning. It can make us feel good about ourselves when we learn something new or take some time for self discovery. Not only is it enjoyable to do but it can make life, in general, more enjoyable because we become open to more opportunities. Here are some examples of ways you can engage in personal development:

• Setting goals
• Setting small steps to reach goals
• Self help book
• Socialising in new settings (new hobby or volunteering) 
• Learning ways to emotionally regulate
• Self love activities
• Free online courses 
• Learning what your needs are and how to meet them yourself
• Journalling about self-discovery (read 17 questions for self discovery)

5. Slow down and simplify

It is common for people these days to be over-scheduled. This leads to not being able to fully enjoy and embrace each area of their lives. This can be because of many different pressures on oneself both externally and internally. This can often lead to burnout. If you are experiencing burnout, you can read how to recover from parental burnout. It is often once people reach a desperate point that they realise they need to take a step back and simplify the pressures. However, this doesn’t need to be the case. Small steps can be taken to slow down and simplify your life so that you can begin enjoying it more. Here is some ideas:

• Declutter your home
• Prepare meals ahead of time
• Declutter wardrobes
• Say no more often
• Rethink responsibilities (make a list of your priorities and see if there are any responsibilities you can let go of)
• Do what you want to do in your free time, not what you think you should do

6. Find authentic connections 

Think about the people you choose to have in your life. Do they make you feel good? do their values align with yours? Do they respect you for who you are? We all have different aspects to our personalities, therefore mixing with a range of people means we are able to express different parts of who we are. It is just important that we do not mix with people who are not healthy for our well-being, and it is ok to not be around these people, or if we need to communicate with them then to have boundaries. Some ways we can find authentic connections with people are:

• Join events that are of interest to you
• Join online groups with similar values and interests
• Volunteer for something meaningful to you
• Be honest and upfront about who you are
• Pay attention to how you feel around different people 
• Journal about your interests and values to learn about what type of people you want to connect with